


let me go, i've seen enough

by s0dafucker



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Post canon, Pre Canon, Sort Of, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, an actual thing that includes jenna, b u t, i rewrote the ending but everything else is canon, if ur a michael stannie be warned hes not in this, in case you cant tell i dont like chloe, jenna rolan protection squad, like hes mentioned, non-canon ending, really fucking delving into the canon material, shes a kid and she fucked up so i dont hate her, shes a shitty friend, shitty coping mechanisms, thats it, the cool all lowercase typing style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-03-15 14:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13614876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0dafucker/pseuds/s0dafucker
Summary: a study of the crown prince and princess of middleborough high.





	1. and your eyes are covered in scars

chloe is crimson lips, bright colors chosen and outfits carefully crafted to draw attention, labels facing out and nails perfectly catching every light middleborough has to offer, everything about her a point of envy.

brooke is a sidekick. a consolation prize for the boys who can’t have chloe, the tall jocks with clumsy hands and even less coordinated compliments, the boys who flock first to the hottest girl in the room and then settle for the second best, brooke with the smile that one of them described as ‘not the best thing you can do with your mouth’ and another as ‘kinda shitty, y’know’, both expecting her to laugh and looking to chloe for approval,  _ chloe _ , who for all her long legs and green eyes and perfect smile, stays quiet- sitting on tonight’s winner’s lap and leaving smears of red on his jawline, signs of victory left behind on a guy whose name she won’t remember. 

they are never delicate or considerate and brooke has learned to get used to it- their sweaty palms grabbing at her tits and her ass while she sips her beer and looks away. she’s learned not to complain and definitely not to leave; it would make her a  _ bitch _ , and that is the worst thing you can be at a party, that bitch friend of chloe’s who can’t have a good time, and she was 12 years old when she knew that she was gay.

boys are so red, red letterman jackets and knuckles split open and red like all the things she hates, like solo cups and the mood lighting in jake’s hot tub and the lipstick chloe wears when she has someone to impress. 

red isn’t her color. she knows by now that it is chloe’s, chloe’s color to revel in and paint herself with- red lips red nails jake’s red jacket- and brooke is content to stay quiet and pretend that she believes the color of blood is also the color of passion. 

chloe listens when she talks, when they’re alone, she leans her head against the wall and lets brooke tell her about whatever she wants, her theories of how high school is a metaphor for the universe while they pass a joint or a pipe back and forth, filling chloe’s room with smoke because no one will come knocking. the liquor cabinet doesn’t have a lock at chloe’s house and neither does she, because when they are alone brooke and chloe are themselves, quiet murmurs and brushing hands and a tangle of blurry feelings in brooke’s chest.

when they are in school it is different- they are  _ chloe and brooke,  _ rich and hot and above everyone else, above jenna rolan, who has the prettiest eyes but who chloe and the rest of the crowd have deemed lesser, so she sits alone and chloe and brooke keep their hands from touching above the table and chloe speaks to her in the language crafted by the high school elite, the money and parties and crowns masquerading as halos.

jenna rolan is not the elite, and so she has made herself useful. she explained it to brooke one night, when they were both pretending to be drunk; she is not pretty- not especially outstanding, but a softer kind of attractive, the kind that isn’t appreciated by high school standards, brooke reflects- she is not pretty, she explained, and so she had to learn to be useful to the girls who are. she told brooke of a time when she was jen, just jen, jen who nobody noticed, and she built  _ jenna rolan  _ out of nothing, out of a girl who just liked to watch people go by, and brooke kissed her in jake’s basement.

and then she ran. she panicked and ran upstairs with her head full of jenna’s words, her heart and soul and she couldn’t help wondering if  _ that _ ’s going to get passed around the grapevine- brooke lohst is gay and she kissed jenna fucking rolan and she presses herself to rich as soon as she gets upstairs, kisses him so that  _ i kissed her  _ can be replaced in her mind,  _ i kissed him, _ trying not to think of jen and richard goranski from freshman year, downing a beer and emptying her mind.

jenna rolan speaks to her at school sometimes, but only with stories of madeline and the rest of the football team, offering her best news in exchange for a moment of their time, begging to entertain the high court of fake royalty. 

she doesn’t meet brooke’s eyes, never sees her silent apologies.

jake and chloe are not in love, but they know that they should be; quarterback, head of the fucking frisbee golf team, and the hottest girl in school. the two of them are tall and beautiful, hands held with pride in the hallways, bedroom doors locked at parties, chloe’s hand resting on jake’s leg under the lunch table instead of brooke’s. 

chloe doesn’t like dustin, so she gets her weed from rich. brooke doesn’t want chloe to know she’s getting weed, so she goes to dustin.

her parents look at each other the way jake and chloe do after a couple of drinks, slamming doors but treading quietly, like breaking flowers and setting them down softly to die, snapping the stem of a rose and leaving it with thorns up to be trodden on.

brooke lets smoke fill her lungs and sighs out her window, wishing for chloe to come home as roses fill the hallways and she lets herself go numb.

she hooks up with a guy from the next district over to placate chloe. she fakes the sex and giggles when she is supposed to, hand over her mouth so no one can see her smile. he cheats on her with a cheerleader and she knows she shouldn’t care, but it stings.

jake and chloe fuck in every room of jake’s house- brooke knows, because she is always with chloe at his parties, and she is painfully aware of every moment when they’ve gotten a little too drunk and look at each other with venom in their eyes, venom that they poorly disguise with honey, and they take each other’s hands and brooke wants to think that she has never imagined what they do behind closed doors, but she does. she thinks about it sometimes, the sound of jake’s breathing mixing with chloe’s moans and it used to make her jealous, but that was when they liked each other. 

when the two of them were new to each other she saw it in their eyes that there really was something- a spark, a partnership between these two extraordinary beings- but they are just people.  

people get tired of each other. people feel the pressure to hold things together like supergluing a dam to hold back a flood, like pressing your hands together and squeezing too hard as you cross the street or walk down the hallway, slamming your doors and speaking in hushed whispers instead of shouting, because you cannot upset the delicate balance you’ve created, you cannot shatter a status quo, and brooke quickly learns why they call it a broken home.

the separation is not a divorce, it does not involve the lawyers, and brooke’s father mentions to her in passing that he will be staying in the hotel across town until things ‘clear up’.

her mother is doting and she wishes more and more for chloe to make time for her, because the only thing worse than stepping on thorns is the absence of flowers altogether.

she doesn’t know where to place blame. she can’t decide if anyone deserves it, and tears slip down her face as she takes as many hits as it takes to make herself numb, shivering in the wind from her open window and reaching out for chloe, to tell her she’s rethought her theory- high school isn’t a metaphor for anything. it’s a prison.

jake and chloe break up and still they do not avoid each other. they finally end the balancing act- jake tells her they can’t keep doing this behind a locked door at someone’s house (madeline’s?), and brooke leans against the wall, high on something, some pill handed from someone’s clammy hand in the living room, listening to their voices raise and then soften, listening to chloe’s quiet sobs and jake’s apologies, his genuine apologies, and then the doors swings open and chloe is brooke’s friend again.

her eyes are red and swollen behind the layers of makeup on monday, and brooke sees that her manicure is chipping when she rests her hand on brooke’s thigh. 

she and jake sit at separate tables, but by tuesday things are back to normal, both of them making a little less eye contact, and chloe has just invited brooke over to smoke when jake announces he is going to audition for the play. he doesn’t say why and no one asks, because everyone knows that jake makes it his mission to do every extracurricular middleborough has to offer.

what surprises brooke is when chloe chimes in ‘that sounds like fun!’, smiling wide- her real smile doesn’t look like that, her real smile is sort of understated and smirk-y, it makes you feel like you earned it- and everyone else chimes in, agreeing, because whether they are together or not, they all answer to jake and chloe, and so they all go to play rehearsal together. 

this is not the first time brooke has ever seen christine, but it’s the first time she ever pays attention. she is one of the only people there, and she is smiling like there’s nowhere else she’d rather be, and it hasn’t even started yet.

christine  _ glows, _ the way brooke hasn’t seen anyone in a long time, like someone with genuine passion instead of someone putting on a show of indifference, and it is beautiful, and brooke catches herself staring. 

chloe sees her as competition, because everything is a competition to chloe, everything is an opportunity to prove that she is the best. 

chloe doesn’t lead the pack in christine’s direction until after she has spoken to jake, so when brooke actually takes a seat across from her she has had plenty of time to admire her from afar- admire her eyes and the way her hair falls and her smile- and she can’t tell if that makes it easier or harder to listen to chloe tell her that  _ jake goes from one extracurricular to the other, y’know?  _

her face falls a little, but she brightens almost immediately, noticeably less happy than before, though brooke wonders if it’s noticeable to anyone else. chloe and christine are playing a game that only chloe knows the rules to, because chloe  _ makes  _ the rules, chloe invented the game and dragged christine into it, put her through the paces to lose so that she can have her victory.

jeremy heere is also in the play, but brooke doesn’t notice him at first because he is unremarkable. he is a loser, below jenna, below those that chloe and jake acknowledge, below almost everyone besides the real creeps and his equals. rich keeps him and his buddy in line, reminds them of their place, and it isn’t until the first time they speak that it clicks for brooke that he is also a  _ sidekick. _

it feels weird to see him without headphones kid, and she realizes that that is how she must look when she is not by chloe’s side. jenna rolan’s raised eyebrows when she came down the basement stairs. and he doesn’t speak mostly to chloe, the way they all do. his eyes, his cool blue eyes, regard her with less fear and intimidation and more  _ kindness.  _ like she is more than chloe’s shadow, or a pair of tits and a trophy to be won, jeremy heere looks at her like she is someone who means something.

he is desperate for a girlfriend and she leaps at the chance to be something to him, something to  _ anyone,  _ because chloe is distant and they don’t spend as much time as they used to together.

she quickly learns that jeremy has the same thing as rich, the pill or whatever, the thing that makes them act different sometimes, but she can tell when jeremy has it off. he doesn’t need to be high to talk to her, not like chloe, he can be honest with her for no reason except that they are together. he actually takes her to his house, when his dad isn’t home, and they just sit on his bed and talk about things. she tells him about chloe. about her parents. about jake and rich and jenna and then it comes tumbling out that she isn’t in love with him, not really, but she loves him, loves his blue eyes and long fingers that can fold around hers and the piece of hair that falls in his face and the fact that he listens to her. no one has ever listened, she admits, not really, no one but chloe, and chloe is caught up in her image, her reputation,  _ jake _ , and she can’t find it in herself to listen to brooke when she is sober, or when people can see, and jeremy listens to it all, sits back and lets her words spill out until her heart is poured out in the open on his ikea comforter, and he sifts through it gently, so not to hurt her, and they talk until they know each other.

he is in love with christine, and they make jokes about jake, about how  _ i wish i could hate him, he’s just such a sweet guy,  _ and brooke realizes she finally has someone she can be honest with. chloe doesn’t know she’s gay, she tells him softly, playing with jeremy’s fingers as he untangles her hair. jeremy’s the only person who knows. 

he tells her about michael, about how his eyes light up when he smiles, and how his hoodie is huge and warm and smells just like him, and- his face falls and he whispers how much he misses him. he flinches, then, and his eyes glow a little, a bright blue you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t intimately familiar with the natural blue of his eyes- and brooke lays down and pats the space next to her. 

being in the play is hell, it is constant judgment and scrutiny, but brooke survives it because it is so much time to just look at christine, to admire her doing what she loves, and it warms her heart to watch the scenes she has with jeremy- the two of them are complementary, the people brooke  _ loves,  _ and jeremy blushes and smiles nervously every time christine breaks character to talk to him. 

chloe speaks to her in play rehearsal, snide remarks about christine and slight hints that jeremy might not be up to par, not quite reaching the bar set by jake, but brooke brushes it off, stays quiet and watches her two favorite people do what they love.

jeremy becomes more and more distant. he stops speaking about michael and holds her hand more loosely- the times in which his eyes are their natural blue become few and far between.

she lets it happen. she doesn’t pull him back, she lets their fingers intertwine loosely, just barely held together, and she watches him joke around with jake and rich, his hand on her thigh. 

jake abandons madeline, a messy conversation in a basement on a saturday- brooke always finds herself listening to these things, doesn’t she, she’s lost jeremy and chloe a long time ago- and jake whispers how he is fucked up, he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, he’s sorry he dragged madeline into it, and she doesn’t cry, surprisingly. brooke holds her joint and her beer in the same hand, on the ground behind the stairway, listening to their voices shake. madeline tells him he’s under so much pressure, _too much fucking pressure, jake, you don’t need_ _to be good at everything,_ and he sobs into his hands, insisting softly that he does. he doesn’t know what he is without being the great jake dillinger, king of high school, and they hold each other.

rich comes downstairs once madeline leaves, his steps falling heavy on the basement stairs.  _ ‘you okay?’ _

halloween is one of the worst nights of brooke’s life. 

she worked too hard on her costume, designed for sex appeal- appealing to who, she wonders, -and jeremy seems on edge. she laughs and gets him a beer.

jake is with christine when she walks past them to go to the upstairs bathroom- there’s ice and beers in the bathtub, and she needs another drink- and christine looks  _ beautiful  _ and she wonders if the two of them can talk at all, get to know each other better- 

chloe passes her on the stairs. she smirks and brooke wants to ask  _ why,  _ what has she done that they don’t speak outside school anymore; but she passes without a word.

when she gets back downstairs jeremy’s gone- that’s not entirely weird, he usually wanders off to join jake and rich at parties, but jenna is sitting on one of the armchairs and looking at her meaningfully. even in the near-darkness brooke can tell she’s got  _ news _ , she’s typing something, and brooke crosses the room, her mind stringing together chloe’s smirk and jeremy’s blue eyes and jenna’s beckoning gaze until there’s a cold feeling in her chest.

jenna can’t meet her eyes when she tells her that she saw jeremy and chloe go upstairs- they were holding hands, chloe pulling him, but it might not be that bad, they might not be doing anything, and brooke, can we talk, but everything sounds like static in her ears because jeremy is just one more guy, one more person who picked chloe over her, and she thought he was different and she knocks on doors until she doesn’t get an answer and her voice shakes when she asks for jeremy.

her chest feels like a knife has gone through it, but maybe it’s empty, maybe jeremy’s downstairs looking for her, and she sinks to the ground and pulls her knees up to her chest and tries not to cry.

jake comes up the stairs after a couple minutes, his eyes red and puffy, and he tries the doorknob.

brooke stands, wanting to ask, but he and chloe start to yell, every argument they ever wanted to have but never could out in the open, her father’s key on the kitchen table, and jake mutters that he’s going around to the window, and brooke stands frozen, waiting, the shattering of glass and then jeremy opens the door and his eyes are unmistakably his- 

he looks stricken and jake doesn’t spend his time on chloe, all his anger redirected at jeremy because that is easier, and jeremy apologizes and pushes her aside, leaving her standing in the hallway, and chloe reaches out,  _ ‘brooke, wait-’ _ and she stumbles downstairs and slams the front door, part of her hoping that someone will follow her- chloe, jeremy, jenna,  _ christine-  _ but the party goes on without her and she walks, stumbling over the sidewalk, to her house, shivering. 

chloe calls her early in the morning, when she should be sleeping, talking too fast, about  _ rich,  _ and  _ a fire, did jenna tell you? i thought i was going to die  _ and she forces a note of remorse into her voice when she tells her that  _ it was all jeremy’s fault, let’s be friends again,  _ and brooke hangs up having said next to nothing. 

christine calls sometime after sunrise.

‘hey, uh, jake gave me your number.’ she pauses. ‘it’s christine! by the way. christine from the play. i’m puck.’

‘i know.’

‘oh. well, um, have you heard about rich?’

‘yeah. were you there? like, when it happened?’

‘no, i, uh, left kinda early. parties aren’t usually my thing.’

brooke’s heart is pounding quietly. ‘what is usually your thing?’

‘oh, uh, is that like, an invitation? like, you wanna hang out?’

‘i mean, if you want. to, like, make up for chloe being shitty and everything.’ 

‘sure! you wanna get cocoa at starbucks?’

they buy flowers to bring to rich at the hospital. coffee in hand, they stand before a row of grocery store flowers, and brooke feels lost.  _ lohst,  _ she thinks jokingly; she is entirely perfect to be the girl standing in front of beautiful things and feeling intimidated. 

christine steps forward.

‘they usually send white lilies to funerals because they stand for sympathy, but i don’t know if it would be too morbid for rich.’ she runs her fingers contemplatively over an iris, and she turns to look at brooke. ‘am i overthinking it?’

they settle on yellow roses- christine explains that they mean friendship, and it reminds brooke of the way jeremy would tell her the plots of his favorite video games, his eyes shining, and her chest suddenly hurts. 

rich isn’t open to visitors, according to the woman at the desk, but she says the flowers will get to him. 

the play follows a few days later; days that are uneventful but for conversations that make brooke feel warm inside during rehearsal, trying to ignore the icy chill that comes with chloe’s gaze.

jeremy is quiet, and brooke notices that he is even distant towards christine- she doesn’t know why. 

jake’s legs are broken and his house is in shambles and he refuses to let anyone say it’s rich’s fault. he won’t let anyone talk about rich at all, and no one questions it because you don’t question jake, but brooke can’t forget the image of his bloodshot eyes and the sound of his sobs, rich’s arm around his shoulders, can’t get his low growl of chloe’s name out of her head. 

apparently he and chloe made up. she wonders if that’s satisfying to chloe- she doubts it. she finds herself wondering a lot lately. 

there certainly isn’t anything interesting in her own head.

the play is a nightmare.

she is backstage, practicing her lines without focusing on them at all, mind wandering to jeremy and christine and then she absentmindedly takes a drink and her fucking  _ head  _ hurts, jesus, and there is a voice in her head that sounds like chloe’s, but loud, louder than usual, and  _ commanding. _

everything is a blur of noise, of movement, dark and bright and quiet and so fucking loud, and it feels like she’s on autopilot, like her mind is dead, dormant, and something else is in control. 

chloe’s voice is sneering, dripping venom, and brooke cries, alone in some corner of her mind, terrified.

she wakes up to christine’s eyes, her head throbbing.

it hurts to sit up, but she does, immediately closer to christine, who smiles, relieved.

‘what happened?’ christine just shakes her head. 

she looks around and everyone on the stage is lying down or sitting up, dazed, and there are paramedics by jake’s side- she has a weirdly clear memory of him standing on his broken legs, declaring he can’t feel pain- but she dismisses it as a nightmare.

jeremy is nowhere to be seen, but chloe is a few feet away, sobbing into her hands. 

‘what happened?’ she asks again.

‘i… i don’t know.’ she brushes a piece of brooke’s hair out of her eyes with a shaky hand. 

‘where’s jeremy?’ 

‘i think the paramedics took him.’ she pauses, and brooke can tell something serious is coming by the little indent between her eyebrows and the way she chews the inside of her lip. ‘what did it say to you?’

‘i can’t remember.’ she lies. 

it’s partly true; her memory is shot, she’s exhausted. but the things chloe (chloe?) said aren’t things she thinks she’ll ever talk about.

christine doesn’t press it, and after a moment she scooches closer, coaxing brooke’s head into her lap. she shuts her eyes and christine starts to stroke her hair, gently, and they sit in silence until the paramedics and police officers tell them to go home.

the next couple days are a blur, but once jeremy is cleared for visitors they both arrive at the hospital, bearing yellow roses. 

it turns out he had been placed in the same room as rich- as per his request, he explains; he wanted to apologize to jeremy for the shit he’d done over the past couple years, he tells them around a mouthful of soup. it’s chicken noodle, from jake, who is recovering at home on strict orders not to move.

‘bitch probably hopped around his kitchen in crutches making this for me.’ rich says, smiling wider than brooke has ever seen. 

jeremy is sleeping. there’s a mixtape sitting on his bedside table next to the roses, and his pile of candy and flowers is starting to rival rich’s. 

‘everyone from school sent shit.’ he says when he catches them looking. ‘even, like, chloe. and i get if it’s just, y’know, to be nice or whatever, to keep up appearances and all that shit-’ he catches himself rambling and shakes his head a little. ‘what are they saying? like, back at school. and what happened to jer?’ 

they explain it all to him, their words flowing together to fill in gaps the other might not know, and brooke can’t help but think of how much she enjoys the way christine’s voice sounds with hers. 

as they finish up explaining what happened the night of the play, jeremy wakes, soundlessly.

‘i squipped the entire cast.’ he says in a hoarse whisper.

rich turns his head.

‘you fucking did what?’

‘it… it told me that was the only way to make everyone happy, and… i don’t know. it got to mr. reyes.’ his eyes are tired, but they are soft, soft, blue; they sweep the room and brighten when they land on brooke and christine. ‘is, um, is michael here?’

‘no.’ brooke says, and the disappointment that crosses his face breaks her heart. 

he nods, a small tilt of his head more for himself than the rest of the room, and he turns to rich.

‘is yours gone?’

‘yeah. once i woke up i kept bugging the nurse for a mountain dew red because it would not shut up- it couldn’t make me be quiet, the fire broke it down a lot, but oh my god was it pissed. your buddy michael was coming by to see you and he heard me; he had a couple in his backpack in case shit needed to be taken care of. is yours gone?’

‘wait, what happened? because it seems like you two know a lot more than we do.’ the boys turn to christine, like they forgot she was there. 

it’s a long story, a winding, slightly terrifying story, but the two of them weave a tale of supercomputers and pills and mountain dew, and slowly things come together.

christine brought a pack of uno cards- like a mom going on a long car ride, always prepared- and they laugh and yell and rich wins three games despite having limited movement of his limbs. brooke hasn’t smiled like this in ages, and jeremy is dealing for round five- his grandma taught him to shuffle- when there’s a gentle knock on the doorframe. 

‘hey.’

it’s michael, in all his red-hoodied glory, and brooke has never been so happy to see someone she’s never spoken to.

‘michael!’ jeremy says, and it strains his voice to be so excited.

she looks to christine and the two of them exchange a glance with rich; ‘i think you need a soda,’ brooke says, and he nods, and then he busies himself with studying the remote for the hospital bed with a bobby fischer-like intensity.

brooke and christine hurriedly leave to find a vending machine, both avoiding jeremy and michael’s eyes, and it’s only once they’re out in the hallway that brooke realizes she doesn’t even have money on her.

christine takes her hand and they speak in hushed tones, smiling and avoiding looks, turning down hallways and clasping their hands over their mouths when they laugh too loud- christine tells the dumbest fucking jokes, and her eyes light up when brooke smiles. 

they buy rich a coke and christine gets herself a dr. pepper; ‘wanna share?’ she offers.

they take a long way back to rich and jeremy’s room, giving michael and jeremy as much time as they can.

‘sorry the play didn’t turn out like we wanted.’

christine snorts. ‘that’s an understatement.’ she sips her soda. ‘it’s cool, though. the community theater in the next county over is doing midsummer in may, so i still have a chance to play puck.’

‘well, uh, break a leg. at your audition. but you’ll probably get the part, knowing you, so break a leg in general.’ 

christine turns pink. ‘im not that good.’

‘you were the only one in the play besides jeremy and jake who cared, and definitely the only one who was good.’

they pause outside the room door.

christine peeks inside and she turns back to brooke, grinning. 

‘they definitely made up.’

brooke stands on her tiptoes to look inside and sees what she means; michael is bent over jeremy’s bed, jeremy sitting up as much as possible, and they’re kissing- 

something in her says she should be disappointed, she was jeremy’s girlfriend, but she saw the look in his eyes when he talked about michael, and now- her chest flutters pleasantly at the thought- christine is undisputedly available.

she drops back onto her heels and a smile springs to her face. 

‘finally.’

life isn’t shit.

it stops being shit sometime after the play, after the hospital, after she sees rich and jeremy smile, and it goes up from there.

jenna drops by her house on a saturday.

her mother isn’t home- she’s on a date, some fucker she knows from work, and when jenna knocks brooke is texting christine.

‘hey.’

brooke invites her in, fixes a cup of coffee, fusses over the loveseat; she doesn’t want to make anything uncomfortable. jenna hasn’t spoken to her in months, not directly to her.

‘i just wanted to, um…’ she laughs softly. ‘i don’t even know. it just felt like things were different, y’know? it felt like i could talk to you. about everything.’ she sips the coffee and brooke fiddles with the hem of her sweater. 

‘well, i mean, things are kinda different. really different.’ 

‘yeah.’ brooke somehow finds herself unable to meet jenna’s eyes, even after months of seeking them out. ‘i’m sorry. about what i did.’

jenna becomes another face in the hospital room, and later jeremy’s living room- she and rich have apologies for each other, and it’s the new normal to gather at jeremy’s house over the weekend, greeting mr. heere as they settle down to talk.

he lets jeremy sleep over with girls- his logic is that as long as jeremy is dating someone, he trusts ‘his boy’ not to cheat- and so he joins christine (jenna is at the arcade with rich, michael and jake) at brooke’s house.

it’s past 11 and they’re watching some cooking show christine likes, all of them cuddled up on brooke’s bed, when chloe calls.

she ignores it. if chloe isn’t going to call at a decent hour, brooke isn’t going to pick up. she’s done responding to chloe’s beck and call. 

she glances up and notices jeremy looking- he looks  _ scared,  _ she realizes.

‘jer?’

‘do you and chloe still talk?’

christine glances over and by some instinct, turns the volume on the tv down. 

‘not really.’ a beat. ‘i’m not, like, mad at you about the thing at the party, if that’s what you’re-’

‘no, i, uh, i just… what did she say happened?’

‘you guys made out and didn’t sleep together and a bunch of bullshit about how you came on to her.’

she realizes suddenly that his lip is trembling. 

‘god, jer, what’s wrong?’

christine takes his hand gently. ‘hey,’

‘she, uh, chloe- i, i’m still kinda nervous around her.’ he forces a smile, like it’s a joke, something stupid. ‘at- at the party, she, um, she wanted to-’ he fumbles for words. ‘sleep with me, to like, get back at jake, or you, or whatever, and i didn’t want to,’ he hits his fist on his thigh. ‘i didn’t want to, but my squip, i- i couldn’t move,’ a sob catches in his throat and christine’s hand is on his back, rubbing circles, and brooke is turning the words over in her mind.

‘oh my god. fuck, jeremy, that’s so fucked up-’ 

she blocks chloe’s number and she and christine spend the rest of the night comforting jeremy.

school is different now.

the popular crowd still exists. brooke doesn’t want anything to do with it. 

rich too, and jake still counts some of them as his friends, but they won’t speak to jeremy and michael, and they’ve blacklisted rich following the fire.

michael and jeremy’s lunch table has enough empty seats for everyone.

brooke’s mom takes a liking to christine; she says the girl is ‘a welcome change’ from chloe.

chloe doesn’t speak to brooke.

she doesn’t know if she still calls, but she wonders sometimes, if the girl she once knew is anywhere to be found in the gilded plastic shell that walks the halls of middleborough. if underneath it all, the girl she fell in love with once upon a time is still a princess, soft green eyes and all. 

she doesn’t think she’ll ever know.

but she’ll settle instead for the feeling of christine’s fingers interlaced with hers, the way jeremy’s eyes light up when michael smiles, the sight of jenna and rich and jake all waiting for her when she walks into jeremy’s living room. 

she’ll settle for the knowledge that she is brooke. jeremy’s friend brooke, christine’s girlfriend brooke, brooke lohst who is brooke lohst and no longer a sidekick.


	2. cyanide eyes kids

richard goranski is dead.

richard goranski was a loser, a nobody who sat alone at a cafeteria table by himself and failed every class he took.

richard goranski was black and blue skin, tears slipping down scraped cheeks, richard goranski was sad smiles and dark nights spent alone and the way it feels to lose hope. richard goranski was close to giving up, close to death. richard goranski was the definition of alone.

_ rich,  _ on the other hand.

rich is everything richard goranski could never be. rich is  _ chill.  _ rich can get any girl at any party to do anything he wants. rich is liked, if not loved, hailed as a saint in the way that popular people are, lifted onto the shoulders of the football team now and then because he’s short and likable, praised for everything he does.

and all it took was selling his goddamn soul.

all it took to sit where he does today, jake’s right side, chair tipped back because he just doesn’t give a fuck,  _ if it scares you to sit like that you don’t deserve to be there,  _ was killing richard for good.

his dad was passed out and so it wasn’t easy, but it was  _ possible,  _ to take a couple hundred dollars and slip away to payless before school, exchanging money for the key that would fix it all, dollar bills and shaking hands and then a little gray pill in the palm of his hand. 

and jesus, it fuckin’  _ hurts,  _ but he grits his teeth because he’s used to pain- grits his teeth and doesn’t scream and then there’s a voice in his head that takes precedence over the rest of the noise.

it tells him, first of all, that  _ richard _ is a name for a scared little boy.  _ richard  _ is a little boy with bruises and tear-stained sleeves and a crush on the quarterback, and richard cannot exist anymore. he needs to die so that  _ rich  _ can rise from the ashes,  _ rich,  _ who is everything richard was not, cool and popular and deserving of respect from jake and chloe and blind admiration from the masses, the crowds of nameless, faceless kids who never earned their place.

he still thinks about jake sometimes, still thinks about  _ boys,  _ the way he shouldn’t, and each time he’s rewarded with the familiar electric shock that conditions away everything his squip doesn’t approve of. he is pavlov’s dog and he embraces it.

he learns the language, the words laced with venom and apathy that are tossed between the tired- they are so fucking tired- royalty. he learns that what he always mistook for halos are simply crowns, gilded crowns that will slip off your head with one wrong move, and he holds onto his with everything he has, because he cannot lose it. 

_ don’t slouch so much, don’t sit up too straight, laugh at that, you’re disgusting, everything about you is terrible, you make me wish i was human just so i could die, you’re awful, do this, do that, do everything i say because otherwise you are worthless _

he only cries the first couple of times, and then he starts listening to the orders, fixes his wardrobe with money that  _ your father won’t miss, he is too intoxicated to keep track,  _ and starts talking to jake dillinger in class-  _ you need to establish a bond with him  _ -and then he meets dustin.

dustin kropp is the guy to go to if you want anything- ids, weed, whatever, and as it turns out, he is a good stepping stone to the popular people. dustin is their supplier and so rich becomes their dealer, the two of them walking from the community college to dustin’s basement to smoke and talk, and then onto jake’s house, or chloe’s, or sometimes brooke’s- and soon rich is considered a part of the crowd. 

he still remembers the invite to jake’s party- sophomore year, a wednesday, 5th period algebra-  _ hey man, you busy on friday? i’m having a thing, y’know, if you wanna come,  _ and he smiled, that stupid fucking crooked smile that made his chest flutter and then came the shock that he is well enough accustomed to not to wince.

_ do it go to the party that is jake dillinger he is the king of this school do you know what will happen to your reputation if you go do it go to the party do it  _

he doesn’t need the extra voice in his head to tell him what he already knows. this is what he always wanted and he tells dustin all about it- giggling, sort of high despite his squip’s warnings and they lean in close the way they always do, hands on each other’s thighs and dustin’s soft voice is a comfort, ‘that’s fuckin’ great, rich, that’s the shit’, and their noses brush, dustin’s warm breath and the smell of weed and and their lips are close together, and there’s no voice in rich’s head to tell him this isn’t right, and they kiss. it’s warm and wanting and dustin’s fingers wind through rich’s hair- he feels like embers, like crackling heat, and dustin pulls back once they’re both short of breath, and he grins.

‘so you wanna get going to that party?’

dustin has his hands in his pockets the way there, breathing warmly into the cold air to watch the clouds, and he tells rich he’s not in the right headspace for a relationship, so rich can do what he wants with whatever they have going- and rich stutters and nods, wringing his hands and wishing for the sleeves of his old sweaters.

the party is just getting started when they walk in, the music pounding loud enough to give rich a headache- he switches his squip back on and it gets to work blocking his pain response.

_ you shouldn’t have done that. dustin has connections. he could tell someone. _

he wouldn’t have kissed him back if he was going to tell someone, rich reminds it, getting a cup of lukewarm beer from a dude on the football team whose name he can’t remember. he walks through to the kitchen, not used to the feeling of being a guest at these things instead of just the dealer.

‘rich!’

he looks up and it’s jake, jake dillinger, tall, blue eyed, jake dillinger, who is grinning like it’s the best day of his life- 

‘you came, dude, that’s awesome.’

_ it’s good to see you, man. sweet party. _

he recites his lines.

_ pretend to sip your beer. _

they make idle conversation as rich’s heart pounds in his ears, his tongue fitting around the words in a way he is still not used to, ironing out the way his  _ s  _ brushes against his teeth, further separating  _ rich  _ from  _ richard.  _   
he makes his rounds through jake’s house, talking to chloe and brooke-  _ chloe is the alpha. she is out of your league; you only fascinate her because you are new. go for brooke.  _

he gets her number-  _ burn it. tell her you lost it on monday. she will give it again.  _ -and he feels surprisingly distant from the whole thing.

his father does not take badly to rich being out of the house, and neither does jake, showing him around his mansion of a house that is always empty but for them- and jake slowly becomes a person, instead of this unattainable thing; he becomes less pretty blue eyes and handsome smile and more hands that can encompass rich’s own, arms that fold around him during their pool lessons, and rich feels like a bonfire has been lit in his chest when they are together.

jake admits that he doesn’t even like beer that much, laughing when rich suggests they drink together on a saturday morning. 

madeline and dustin are close, rich notices, and he asks dustin about her- what they are, and he laughs, puffs of smoke leaving his lips.

his squip reminds him that this is useless information- dustin and madeline are below him now; the only people he should concern himself with are jake and chloe and the jocks and cheerleaders who make up the entourage.  _ and keep an eye on jenna rolan.  _ it whispers, its voice like tendrils of smoke, dark and curling around the edges of rich’s vision.

dustin and madeline are friends with benefits, but above all, dustin clarifies, hands stretched out above him to draw diagrams in the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling- they’re friends. his fingers make constellations when they are not holding a joint, telling stories of late nights and warm kisses and laughter, and rich is so grateful to have him that he thinks for a moment he might give up on being  _ chill _ if it means dustin’s friendship and jake’s occasional conversation.

he can’t speak to dustin the next day.

the words are there, resting on his tongue like a cloud of smoke, but his mouth won’t cooperate and when he and dustin make eye contact, the familiar electric current courses down his spine.

_ dustin is an obstacle to our goal.  _ it heaves a heavy sigh, its voice with a rasp like firewood, thick with melodrama.  _ unfortunately, the current squip model cannot completely restrict your interaction. squip 3.0 will be implementing software to block optic stimuli- but as 2.0, i can merely control your vocal responses.  _

_ you may talk to dustin, but only with approved dialogue. _

he tries to shut it down, and is met with an error message-  _ access to shutdown procedure denied.  _ his stomach drops. 

he shoves some kid out of his way, a tall fucker in a cardigan, and locks himself in a bathroom stall. 

_ access to shutdown procedure denied. _

_ access to shutdown procedure denied. _

his lungs are starting to hurt, and after a moment the dark voice of his squip kicks in, and his pulse lowers.

_ stop hyperventilating, rich. it’s unbecoming. _

he can’t shut it off, he can’t shut it off anymore, it’s always going to be there-

_ and what’s so bad about that?  _ it croons.  _ i’ve always helped you. i can help you more.  _

he doesn’t respond. 

_ you know 3.0 will be visual? they’re saying 3.5 will be able to activate your nerves beyond pain-inducing stimuli. imagine that, rich. a squip who can comfort you in,  _ it chuckles.  _ times of crisis.  _

his breath is coming back, he’s inhaling at a kind of normal pace again, and he can see the upside to his squip being always on. it makes sense. 

_ it does, doesn’t it? you’ll never have to wonder what to say again. you’ll always be chill.  _

and it’s right.

it starts slow, still giving him the space he wants, and although it’s apparently not possible until squip 3.5, he can almost feel the comforting weight of its hands on his shoulders. 

he breaks it off with dustin, and it coaxes away the hurt in his eyes until rich is sure he imagined it.  _ dustin never liked you that much anyway. he was using you.  _

he and jake skip class and buy sodas at the gas station. they wander through the park and everytime rich is reaching for something to say it steadies him, dark and warm and feeding him the words he needs until it is effortless. 

jake’s parties become boring. routine. 

he kisses girls and pretends to smoke, memorizing the details of the walls- there’s a dent next to the mantle, he makes a note to ask jake about it- brooke’s eyes are blue and madeline’s are brown and neither of them care very much about sucking his dick, despite the good job they do of it. 

_ they don’t need to like you and you don’t need to like them. it’s about status, rich.  _

he loses his virginity to madeline. 

they don’t talk much and his squip teaches him the right way to touch her, and when it’s over she kisses him softly and asks if he wants to stay in bed. 

his squip quietly, gently, insistently, says he should go, but he’s tired. 

he finds out the name of that tall kid who he pushed.  _ jeremy heere,  _ it says.  _ show him who you are. show him not to fuck with you. _

jeremy heere is tall and stammers and has only one friend, so he is easy to bully.  _ not bully. that’s what they say on after school specials. you’re just showing him where he belongs.  _

the squip is a constant presence, but no longer an unwelcome one- on the contrary, it’s  _ comforting.  _ it knows what to do when rich does not, it fills the gaps that kept him from a perfect life- the lulls in conversation that he can now fill, the moments of weakness that it removes altogether, any hint of a lisp gone from his voice. 

richard dies sometime after the first time he calls jeremy heere a faggot.

richard hated that word- it was one of his father’s favorites.

rich doesn’t see much of  _ his _ father. he doesn’t speak of him, following the norm among his new ‘friends’; your parents don’t exist unless you are reminding the others that they will not be home to witness whatever you’re writing the guestlist for.

he hasn’t heard much of jake’s parents- they’re never home and he figures they’re some kind of shitty. he’s never asked, but sometimes he hears something lingering on the edges of his voice that scares him. 

apathy is popular among those who are popular. 

feeling is for people without a reputation to maintain, because passion makes you too vulnerable, too human to be one of the elite, makes you look like you  _ care _ .

because no one cares. no one gives a fuck about anything and anyone except the way their lips fit around lips and cans and bottles, how many stories they can spin to make themselves look good, no one gives a fuck about anything but being  _ chill.  _

richard would’ve resented it, but rich, he embraces it all. he trades in his emotions for the hollow feeling of nothing, gladly ridding himself of tears and the imperfections in his voice in exchange for a smile that tastes metallic and tugs at the corners of his mouth until they ache.

he wonders sometimes if it’s worth it- if it’s really all it seems from the outside; and then he catches a glimpse of jake’s smile, his eyes, feels him knit their fingers together, and it’s all worth it again. it’s perfect. 

jake is more of a drug than anything rich has tried. his laugh is everything that is good about life, like the burn of whiskey and the click of pool balls, the smell of firewood and cologne and the air just before sunrise; 

he wonders how many shocks it will take for the urge to slam their mouths together to go away.

_ it’ll take time, rich. a ballpark estimate would be about six months. by then you’ll have a girlfriend and jake won’t occupy your thoughts nearly as much, or in any of the same ways. _

he finds jake in the basement the night he breaks up with madeline. 

he is sobbing into his hands and it makes something in rich’s chest hurt, his breath catch- and he realizes he doesn’t know what to say. he sits next to him on the couch, rests his hand on his shoulder, and it is so horribly raw and awful, like jake is cutting himself open and showing rich the inner workings of himself and he doesn’t know what to  _ do.  _

it’s a feeling he hasn’t had to feel for months, a year, god knows how long, and it’s a hideous, panicky emotion, and he reaches out hopelessly for something to say, for his squip, free falling for a disgusting, helpless few seconds. it’s terrifying.

he is lucky enough to not have to feel it again until halloween night.

in the precious few months before he ever sees jake dillinger cry, jeremy heere becomes more valuable to him. junior year he is  _ intriguing,  _ and  _ has a surprising amount of potential.  _

he follows him into a bathroom, slamming the door shut to announce his presence, the shiver richard would’ve felt at jeremy’s jump barely a whisper in the back of his mind. 

he shoves him around- it comes so easy to him to hurt this fucking kid, too easy- and gives him the  _ talk,  _ the words he needs to see the appeal, and within a couple days he has one too, and he’s so much more likable, too,  _ much more chill.  _

jeremy learns the ropes fast, leaves rich alone. most people leave rich alone. he is surrounded by people constantly, but none of them speak to him- he finds himself not minding. he doesn’t study, lets the answers flow out of his hand and idly watches it write. it’s foreign to him now. 

time passes in lights reflected in jake’s eyes, semesters dripping down the drain, monotonous sounds, the air warm and then cold and then warm again. he doesn’t think anymore. he doesn’t need to. 

halloween is hell. he didn’t even fucking  _ know  _ it was halloween until after- he didn’t know what day it was, only that the party of the week was at jake’s, jake’s house, jake’s eyes, jake’s hands. jake is the only word that means anything to him, isn’t it? there’s only one voice in rich’s head now and it sure as hell isn’t his.

something  _ snaps  _ halloween night. 

it’s normal, fine, _fine,_ _nor·mal_ _,_ _conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected,_ until it isn’t. 

and boy, it sure fucking isn’t. 

he’s clasping his hand over his mouth to hold back sobs, choking on his own spit, rocking himself back and forth on a cold bathroom floor,  _ it’s ice fucking cold,  _ and frantically typing with fingers spasming from shocks that resonate through his whole body, searching for something to fix this there’s got to be something-

it won’t shut up it won’t shut up and he cries out ‘mountain dew  _ fucking  _ red’ relief flooding him like a high and quickly going cold again  _ test release  _ and  _ discontinued in 1988  _ he curses, screams to make himself heard over the  _ fucking voice in his head  _ because now there’s two and that’s too many and he snaps, breaks clean in half and everything inside him is on fire and he wants it  _ out.  _

he can’t stand it any more and his fingers close around a box of matches on jake’s bathroom counter- the shocks stop, his hands move without convulsing,  **_i can’t help you anymore. just do it. die. you’re pathetic._ ** he can’t breathe he can barely keep his eyes open they’re stinging and he’s coughing, choking, dying, but it’s quiet and he can’t care about anything else when it’s finally  _ fucking quiet.  _

he’s alone. 

it’s a fucking nightmare, but he’s alone. 

everything hurts, and he can hear jake’s voice? of course he would think of jake, but this doesn’t sound like the ideal jake; he’s screaming himself hoarse, yelling rich’s name, and then he’s gone. not much of a fantasy. 

everything’s gray and hazy for a while. he can’t tell how long, but eventually he opens his eyes to a white hospital room. it’s bright white, and everything burns when he tries to move. 

_ can’t even kill yourself properly, can you? _

he winces. ‘guess i can’t.’ he manages in a voice hoarse and whisper-quiet. 

_ excellent job, richard.  _ its voice is as faint as rich’s own, but it’s dripping with scorn. he feels tears pricking his eyes and blinks them away. he tries to move his hands- they’re banadaged but intact, and his arms can bend, but everything else is shot. 

he presses the button to call for the nurse and he explains that rich is nearly covered in first and second degree burns- he’s sympathetic, a soft voice telling rich about his skin grafts and smoke inhalation and the pain meds he’s going to be receiving. ‘you’ve been out for three days.’

‘shit.’ 

the nurse grins. ‘you’ll probably be out of here soon, though. you weren’t in the fire long enough for things to be, like, unfixable.’ he pushes a lock of hair behind his ears; he’s got some long hair, dark and falling over his shoulders. ‘that kid who got you out kinda prevented the worst damage.’ 

rich nods absentmindedly before he processes the words; ‘wait, somebody got me out? it wasn’t, like, the paramedics?’ 

the nurse’s eyebrows flash up for a second. ‘yeah. kid broke his legs.’ 

he sleeps and dreams of ocean eyes, drown-worthy eyes, wakes and relearns how to move. the nurse helps him bathe, gives him his meds and washes the skin around his worst burns- his arms and chest are going to scar, the nurse explains. rich falls asleep each night with the voice in his ears, faint but bitter, and he asks the nurse more out of desperation than real hope if he knows anyone who has mountain dew red. he laughs; ‘didn’t they discontinue that shit in like, the 90s?’ and it becomes a sick joke, something to ask each day. 

‘hey, do you know jeremy heere? he goes to middleborough.’ 

rich turns his head as much as he can manage. ‘yeah, why?’

‘just got admitted. they don’t know what’s up with him, he just kinda passed out last night and hasn’t woken up yet.’ he secures another bandage around rich’s bicep, brow furrowed slightly. 

‘does he have a room yet? or, like, could you move him?’

jeremy’s scarily quiet. he looks like a corpse, too small for the bed. his eyelids and the skin underneath are violet, his pale skin tinged yellow-green. the nurse delivers flowers to their bedsides and his eyes soften in concern when he glances at jeremy’s sleeping form.

he tells rich one morning that he has a visitor and his heart leaps into his throat-  _ it’s always jake with you, isn’t it-  _ ‘he says his name’s michael,’ and he nods and winces at the scornful laugh in his ears. it doesn’t sound like a laugh should, like something distorted and broken.

michael mell couldn’t look less at ease as he steps inside. the nurse ushers him into the room, slipping out to ‘give you some privacy,’ and michael nods self-consciously and sits on the edge of the armchair facing the beds. 

‘hey.’

‘howdy.’ 

michael snickers and it does wonders for untangling the knot that has forced its way into rich’s chest. his eyes linger on jeremy. (there’s something like surprise in his eyes? but maybe it’s regret.)

‘welcome to casa squip boys,’ he continues, gesturing with the limited range of motion he has to the small room. ‘we’re fucked up.’

‘aren’t we all?’ michael says dryly, and it passes for an icebreaker. he pulls a bottle from his backpack and holds it up, offering- rich could weep in relief when he realizes what it is. his squip hisses and rich’s head throbs dully, but he chugs half the bottle. his throat burns and his eyes water- michael goes, ‘dude, holy shit,’- because he hasn’t had anything stronger than apple juice and pudding for a week and soda really fuckin’ hurts but his head feels clear. 

he swallows the last bit of it and waits, unsure; it’s an oddly familiar feeling, the taste of mountain dew and uncertainty, but it’s over in a second, the hissing quieting until there’s nothing left.

‘anticlimactic.’ he manages, voice hoarse.

michael visits every day. he won’t admit that he’s there for jeremy, but it shows; rich doesn’t mind. he wishes the kid would grow a pair and let it all out, but he can suffer a few more longing glances and gently nudge jeremy in the right direction once he’s awake. (michael slips a mixtape out of his pocket and onto jeremy’s bedside table when he thinks rich isn’t looking. it’s labeled ‘player 2’ and has a little doodle of pac-man on it. rich thinks it’s absolutely sickening. he likes it.)

slowly, everything michael has to say to rich comes out, hesitant sentences and ‘how does it work? do you think- do you think it told him not to like me?’.  _ the poor kid.  _ rich can’t help the sympathy that wells up in his chest when he talks about jeremy, the forlorn glances and hand-wringing and hallmark valentines day sweet mixtape. rich likes the kid. 

it feels so good to  _ feel  _ something again. it hurts like hell, the stabbing feeling in his chest when he thinks of jake, but a begrudging fondness for michael- and by extension, jeremy- has settled inside him and warms the space where he supposes his heart should be if it’s still there. 

his nurse drops off a tupperware of soup that lights a bonfire in aforementioned cavity; the masking tape on the top reads  _ jake :)  _ and he can’t even open it until the next day because he’s too enamored with the messy scrawl. 

he’s managing to eat it with bandaged arms and a plastic spoon when there’s a knock on the door much earlier then there should be- he and michael have managed a sort of routine, and his nurse doesn’t knock- and he glances up to see brooke and a short girl he kind of recognizes from play practice. she doesn’t look that short next to brooke, but he kept track of her as ‘the short kid’. the squip probably knew her name. 

they’re here for jeremy, wide-eyed and bearing flowers and rich is so goddamn happy to talk to someone who knows what’s been going on that he almost forgets his lisp entirely, questions tumbling out between bites of lukewarm chicken noodle. brooke and christine (she introduces herself and he’s eternally grateful) tell him the story of jeremy’s major fuck-up, and once he wakes he helps rich explain theirs. 

they decide they’re mostly even; rich has made up for his part in the inciting incident by the company he’s kept michael and his own two years of hell. the underneath of jeremy’s eyes is a bruised purple but he’s smiling and it’s bright and real and it’s giving rich a reason to try.

he thought jake would be the first person he visited when he got out, but he finds himself drawn to dustin’s front door- the last couple days in the hospital were a blur, and the sun feels weird on his skin. it makes his burns hurt, almost, a stinging reminder, and he knocks with shaking hands. 

dustin answers, madeline on the couch behind him, and he looks so relieved, so fucking forgiving, and all he has to say is ‘rich-’ and he almost  _ cries  _ because it’s the first time his name feels like his. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title of this chapter is from a savannah brown poem that i Love, [couldn't care more](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oou9kMR6ZrQ), which is honestly more of a jeremy poem but i'll probably get around to addressing the jeremy/rich parallels at some point so its ok (one of the lines that hella sticks out to me especially as a bmc thing is "i could never roll my rs, so i traded in my tongue for someone else's")  
> anyway big thanks to [vanishingstars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishingstars) and their piece [ baby i've tried, to be (something so easy, to me)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12743226/chapters/29063541) for inspiring some of my rich hcs and for all around being hella cool and emphasizing some of my fave shit abt bmc that couldnt really be explored in the show bc of time constraints/theme/etc
> 
> this is way later than i wanted but!! it's finally done!!

**Author's Note:**

> oof  
> this took about two months and uhhh idk im pretty happy abt it  
> the second part is coming (its abt rich if u couldnt tell)  
> and idk i think the canon material of bmc is really interesting as it is and this was less of a fic than it was a character study with a lot of metaphors


End file.
